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The Words You Use on Your Resume Are Important

We know recruiters don’t spend a lot of time looking at your resume when doing an initial review.

With the current state of the cleared job market, that means your choice of words for your resume is important. CareerBuilder recently surveyed hiring managers and HR professionals from a variety of industries to determine which words they want to see on job seekers’ resumes, and which words make them cringe.

The Most Disliked Words Seen on Job Seekers’ Resumes

1. Best of breed: 38 percent

2. Go-getter: 27 percent

3. Think outside of the box: 26 percent

4. Synergy: 22 percent

5. Go-to person: 22 percent

6. Thought leadership: 16 percent

7. Value add: 16 percent

8. Results-driven: 16 percent

9. Team player: 15 percent

10. Bottom-line: 14 percent

11. Hard worker: 13 percent

12. Strategic thinker: 12 percent

13. Dynamic: 12 percent

14. Self-motivated: 12 percent

15. Detail-oriented: 11 percent

16. Proactively: 11 percent

17. Track record: 10 percent

If you see a lot of these terms on your resume, you’re in for some revisions. Note that many of these disliked words are adjectives.

Words Employers Want to See on Resumes

As we often say, recruiters want to see your achievements, not your responsibilities. These action verbs lend themselves well to describing achievements.

1. Achieved: 52 percent

2. Improved: 48 percent

3. Trained/Mentored: 47 percent

4. Managed: 44 percent

5. Created: 43 percent

6. Resolved: 40 percent

7. Volunteered: 35 percent

8. Influenced: 29 percent

9. Increased/Decreased: 28 percent

10. Ideas: 27 percent

11. Negotiated: 25 percent

12. Launched: 24 percent

13. Revenue/Profits: 23 percent

14. Under budget: 16 percent

15. Won: 13 percent

How about your resume? Do you feature action verbs describing achievements or adjectives linked to job responsibilities?